Motorola's FLEX.TM. Roaming system for selective call receivers utilizes long addresses (or global addresses) and short addresses (or local addresses) for large network wide systems and for localized systems respectively. Thus, a pager operating in its "home" will usually look for a local address and alternatively a global address if the pager is programmed in such manner. As one can imagine, the local addresses or short addresses are limited in number and are sometimes repeated in some of the separate localized systems. Therefore, a problem exists when a pager with a certain address roams into another localized system area where the same certain address is used by another pager. In such a case, both pagers will pick up messages intended to be broadcast to only the one pager in its localized home zone as shown in system 10 of FIG. 1. System 10 shows two geographically separated simulcast areas X and Y and Pagers A and B that both decode the same local or short address. When Pager A travels to Pager B's home zone or local area, messages sent to B will also be inadvertently decoded by pager A. Thus, a need exists in preventing a roaming pager from decoding messages meant for another pager having the same address when the roaming pager is outside its home zone.